CHAPTER SEVEN
The sense of urgency followed them for a few miles, fearful that they were perhaps being followed by whatever dangers Padraigan had eluded to. Through the trees they moved, sometimes traveling through bramble so thick that the horses had a difficult time getting through it. But Padraigan urged them onward and the little people swatted the horses with switches to get them going. The forest around them was thick and still, the canopy dense, and the feeling of unease pervasive. It was like an impenetrable cloak that none of them could shake, this odd feeling of disorientation and apprehension that seemed to blanket them.
Conor felt it but he didn’t say anything to Destry, who finally seemed to be feeling better after their rough experience. She was actually enjoying the horse ride, patting the animal on the neck or stroking its mane. Not being used to horses, however, Conor was more than ready to get off the animal shortly after they started. His bum was killing him, as well as something else a bit more tender, so when they eventually entered a clearing deep in the thick wood and Padraigan dismounted her small white pony, Conor slid off his big shaggy horse and started walking. He just couldn’t take riding anymore and rubbed at his backside to bring some circulation into it. He swore it was numb. Beside him and still astride her fat gray beast, Destry grinned down at him.
“Hurt yourself, Dr. Daderga?” she teased.
He gave her his best scowl. “Mind your own business.”
For the first time since he’d met her, Destry burst into unrestrained laughter. It was a wonderful sound. “Poor baby,” she joked. “Not much of a cowboy, are you?”
He cast her a long look. “I have it on good authority that you’re about to be spanked if you don’t zip your lips.”
She giggled and steered her horse away from him so that there was a good gap in distance. “I’m sorry,” she said, although she didn’t mean a word of it. She was leaning back to get a good look at his butt beneath the baggy jeans. “I hate to tell you this, but your ass is flat. You must have damaged it riding on the horse.”
He just shook his head as he walked, a smile playing on his lips. He wouldn’t look at her.
“Great,” he said sarcastically, heightening his strong Irish brogue. “Now my ass is damaged. If I had trouble getting you to go out with me before, now I’ve just lost a one of the biggest guns in my arsenal. What else can I attract you with if not my fantastic, now flattened, ass?”
Destry hooted as the horses plodded along. “How about those fabulous biceps?”
He looked at her, very hopeful. “You like my biceps?”
Her laughter faded and her bright blue eyes twinkled at him. “I do,” she admitted. “You must work out diligently.”
He snorted. “Religiously,” he concurred. “My father was an amateur bodybuilder and he started me when I was in my teens. If I don’t maintain this bulk, it turns to fat and then I’ll look just like Dowth mound – a big, round blob. So I go to the gym three or four times a week.”
“Did you compete as a bodybuilder?”
He shook his head. “No,” he replied. “I was more interested in school. My dad was disappointed, too; he doesn’t have nearly my height or build and he always wished he had. He used to give me grief about not reaching my potential.”
She watched him walk, still rubbing his bum. “You reached your potential academically,” she said. “You’re a Ph.D., for Heaven’s sake; wasn’t he proud of you about that?”
He nodded, how watching the ground as it passed beneath his feet. “Sure,” he said. “I have a double doctorate in Celtic and Irish History as well as Anthropology, but he would have been proud of me if I ended working at a petrol station.”
She smiled, looking away flirtatiously when he glanced over at her. Conor was so smitten with her that it was all he could think about even though they had bigger problems at hand. For the moment, she was responding to him as she never had before and he wanted to enjoy every minute of it. Finally, her walls of defense were cracking and he was banging away at them with a sledgehammer.
“Do you have brothers?” she asked, gazing off into the trees.
He nodded. “One,” he replied. “Gerritt is eighteen months younger than I am.”
“Any sisters?”
“None,” he looked over at her and their eyes met. “You have a sister, right?”
She nodded. “Caitlin.”
“Does she look anything like you?”
Her smile was back. “A little,” she said. “She’s taller than I am. She teaches high school.”
“Is she married?”
She laughed softly. “No,” she said. “Why? Are you looking for a wife?”
He lifted a red eyebrow. “I’ve already found one; she just doesn’t know it yet.”
Destry’s smile faded as she stared at him, knowing he meant her. She looked away and Conor could feel the mood plummet. He scrambled to get it back on track.
“Did I do it again?” he asked softly.
She was looking off into the woods. “Do what?”
“Offend you?”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she sighed, shaking her head and petting the horse absently. “No,” she said after a moment. “It’s just that I don’t know what to say when you say things like that.”
Conor watched her carefully, her body language. He wasn’t very good at reading women but he was trying very hard.
“I guess I shouldn’t say them at all,” he said quietly. “But I can’t help myself. Destry, if you’re not interested in me in a romantic sense, just say so. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable by telling you what’s on my mind if it’s not something you want to hear.”
She looked at him. “That’s not the case at all,” she suddenly averted her gaze, looking back to the horse again and fiddling with its mane. “Maybe that’s the problem. I just feel… confused.”
“Why?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Because I was supposed to be married two weeks ago,” she paused, thinking of how to voice her thoughts. “You know something? I’ve done a lot of thinking in that time and I came to realize that I’m really not all that upset about losing Jake. If I really think hard about it, he was a jerk; self-absorbed, mean at times, critical. He was hard to be around. So I guess in that sense I really don’t miss the guy. I don’t miss the pressure I felt every time he came around me. It seems to me that what I’m most upset about is being humiliated. And that’s selfish.”
He was watching her intently, gradually walking in her direction and closing the gap between them. “No, it’s not,” he said somewhat gently. “It’s perfectly natural to be upset at being dumped on your wedding day. Don’t you love the guy?”
She thought a moment; hard. Then she started to shake her head. “I guess I really don’t,” she admitted. “Sure, I thought I did at first, but then the infidelity rumors started… oh, hell, I don’t know; when we got engaged, it all happened so fast. He’s a fairly popular sports figure in the States and I guess I just got swept up in it. I think I was more in love with the idea of getting married than with who I was actually marrying. In hindsight, being left at the altar was probably the best thing that happened to me. I just don’t see our marriage lasting.”
He stared up at her, finding her confession both interesting and oddly encouraging. “Aisling said he wasn’t very nice to you,” he said softly.
Destry smiled ironically. “He wasn’t,” she agreed. “Just little things; you know, not opening a door for me, or pulling out my chair, or telling me he loved me or that I was beautiful. But there were bigger things, too; he’d be out on the road for weeks, come home and spend the night at my house and then take off again for weeks. He rarely called me from the road and when he did, it was always really hurried as if he had better things to do. I think… I think he just used me for sex and the fact that his friends really liked me. I heard his friends say that I made him look good.”
She trailed off, falling silent, and Conor noticed that, up ahead, they were coming upon an extremely crude structure. His gaze drifted over the sod construction of the beastly little hut, realizing that it was very primitive. In this day and age, he’d never seen or heard of people still living like this in Ireland, not in the farthest reaches of the isle, and his Anthropologist’s brain started kicking in. He was starting to wonder if he hadn’t discovered an entirely new Irish culture, something primal and crude right in the midst of modern-day Ireland. His attention was becoming diverted by the new scenery but he retained enough focus to answer her.
“Well,” he finally said. “Like I said before, the guy was a moron. You’re the most beautiful women in the world and never under any circumstances would I not pull out a chair for you, or open a door, or tell you every day that I loved you. That’s what you deserve. You deserve to be treated like a queen.”
Destry glanced at him, feeling her heart race a little at his declaration, but she was prevented from replying as Padraigan suddenly headed in their direction, speaking to Conor in that odd dialect. The woman might as well have been speaking Martian for all Destry understood it, so she remained silent while the tiny white woman addressed Conor.
“An mbeidh tú féin agus an banríon teacht taobh istigh le do thoil?” she asked. “Beidh mo sheirbhísigh a réiteach na capaill.”
“What did she say?” Destry whispered to him.
He handed over the reins to one of the poorly dressed midgets and went over to Destry, reaching up to help her off the horse. “She asked you and me to go inside,” he replied. “Her little friends will tend the horses.”
Destry slid into his arms and he lowered her to the ground. Padraigan was already up ahead, heading towards the sorry-looking hut, and Conor took Destry’s hand in his big palm and began to follow. Destry rather liked the feel of his big, warm hand around hers and didn’t pull away. She went right along with it as they made their way across the heavy, wet grass towards the structure almost hidden within a cluster of trees.
Conor looked around the compound with interest; there was a ragged-looking barn for the horses flanked by a giant pile of dried grass. Next to that was a pile of wood and behind that he could see a crudely fashioned corral of sorts that contained two sheep, a goat and a shaggy cow. Everything was run down, cluttered, and crude. As they drew closer to the hut, he could see that it was entirely of sod, built in between two trees that protected it from the elements and also provided a great deal of camouflage. It was primitive and small, and when Padraigan opened the door, he had to fold himself over in order to enter.
Once inside, it smelled of earth and dampness. It was three rooms wide; a main room in the middle flanked by two smaller rooms, all uneven and asymmetrical. The floor was dirt and pitted with small divots. A badly made table sat in the center of the room along with four stools. Padraigan indicated the stools.
“Sit,” she invited. “I will start a fire.”
Conor still had hold of Destry’s hand as he bent over and pulled out a stool for her. She grinned at him as she took it and he pulled out the stool next to her, picking it up to look at it with a critical eye.
“This thing will never hold me,” he growled.
Destry grinned, shaking her head. “How much to you weigh?”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “A lot.”
She giggled. “You can’t be more than three hundred pounds.”
He made a face at her and set the stool down. “About twenty stone, so don’t be so smug.”
“Convert that into pounds for your American friend.”
“About two hundred and seventy pounds.”
He was carefully lowering himself onto the stool as she watched. “Well,” she sighed. “If it breaks, at least you don’t have far to fall to the floor.”
“Very funny.”
He sat and the stool held, at least for the moment. He was seated right up against Destry, his left thigh and arm against her. She was looking at the stool, grinning up at him when she abruptly noticed the blood on his arm. His jacket was torn and she began to peel it back to get a better look.
“What happened here?” she wanted to know, peeling back the material and noting the big gash on his left forearm. “Ouch. How did you get that?”
He looked down at it. “When those naked guys attacked us,” he replied. “One of them had a knife.”
She clucked regretfully as she took a closer look. “That may need stitches, Conor. We should get you to an emergency room.”
“I’ll get it looked at when we get you looked at. How are you feeling?
“Better,” she said. “But my head is killing me. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have a mild concussion.”
“Then we need to get out of here.”
She couldn’t disagree with him, looking around the dark, crude hut, her gaze falling on the small woman lighting the fire in the tiny hearth. She leaned in to Conor, whispering, as her eyes remained on Padraigan.
“I don’t see a phone here,” she muttered. “What do we do?”
He wiped at his goatee in a thoughtful, if not nervous, gesture. His eyes were on Padraigan, too.
“I’m not sure we can do anything right now,” he leaned over, his lips on her ear. “Just sit tight and we’ll figure it out.”
There wasn’t much more they could do. Sitting silently, Destry felt Conor’s arm go around her waist, his hand coming to rest gently on the curve of her torso. Just like the hand-holding a few moments earlier, she didn’t try to pull away. He was trying to be casual about it, but there was nothing casual about the man’s touch. It was like fire. She let go of her resistance and allowed herself to enjoy it. Feeling his enormous body next to her, warm and protective, brought her tremendous comfort.
When Padraigan finally stood up from the hearth, she turned to the pair with a gentle smile on her face. Behind her, the hearth was sparking and the door opened, emitting one of the little people with wood in his arms. As he fussed with the growing fire, Padraigan went into one of the small adjoining rooms and banged about. Conor and Destry looked at each other, curiously, before the woman emerged with three wooden cups and a pitcher made from some kind of clay.
It was very primitive and Conor’s scientist brain kicked in again, visually examining it. Padraigan set the cups down and poured a dark liquid into each of the cups, putting full vessels in front of Destry and Conor. Then she sat on one of the stools and faced them.
“I realize this is all very strange to you,” she said, mostly to Conor. “But you must know the truth.”
Conor relayed the words to Destry before replying. “What truth?” he asked.
Padraigan lifted her cup, encouraging Destry and Conor to do the same. Conor picked his up immediately but Destry was more hesitant. When he took a big gulp of the liquid, she took a timid sip and nearly choked; it was some kind of very strong alcohol and she sputtered as she set the cup down, wiping the burning liquid from her lips. Conor looked at her and grinned.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She had her hands around her throat as if she was choking. “Fine,” she rasped.
He laughed softly, the hand on her waist moving to pat her on the back gently as she sputtered. He was about to say something more to her when Padraigan interrupted.
“Although you do not remember now, in time, it will come to you,” she said to Conor. Then her gaze traveled back and forth between the Conor and Destry, seeing two people she had known very well, once. She knew this day would come; it was crucial for her to make them understand what had happened or all would be lost. “Your name is Conor mac Aonghusa, oidhre chun an throne ard. You are a great king, my lord, Conor ard rí Ciannachta, so great that your legacy is already established and you are much admired and much feared throughout Ireland. The woman at your side is Etain, your queen, and the two of you have three sons together; Mattock, Devlin and Slane.”
Conor stared at the woman, hearing her words but beyond that, he wasn’t comprehending much. He was still fixated on the first sentence of her story.
“‘Conor, son of Aengus, heir to the high throne’?” he repeated, almost in disgust. “Where did you get that? What in the hell is that?”
Padraigan remained calm. “Please, my lord, hear me,” she begged. “Your legacy as a ruler and warrior is so great that your brother, a vain and jealous man, began to want for the throne himself. He made a few attempts on your life but you were too clever for him. You evaded him at every turn and eventually, you banished him from your kingdom. But your brother dabbles in the dark arts, my lord; he lured you to a conference under the guise of peace and commanded his sorcerer, Olc of the Eye, to exile you into the dark mists of the nether regions. As soon as we realized this had happened, your wife sent your children into safe hiding with me. Then she took your army and went to your brother to demand your safe return, but your brother tricked her into a private meeting and his sorcerer exiled her as well. You were both sent through the doras ama, to the same nether region. But your brother, fearful that you would someday return to kill him, cast a curse upon you; you and you wife would have no memory of each other and no memory of the life you shared. You would wander in the nether region forever, ignorant of who you really were and of your mighty kingdom.”
Conor gaped at the woman as if she had lost her mind. After several moments of staring, he wiped at his goatee again in an inherently nervous gesture, and simply shook his head.
“That’s madness,” he hissed. “You’re mad.”
Padraigan shook her head. “Nay, my lord, on either account,” she said softly. “I knew what Olc had done to you; he had sent you and your wife through the doras ama at a time where the day and night are of the same. At the moment where day turns into night, the door opens to the nether regions and for a brief moment, we may see both worlds through the swirling mists. I traveled to the sacred mound when I knew this time was approaching, many times since Olc banished you both, and was able to see your wife at my most recent visit. I spoke to her, hoping she would return, and she did. She heard me and she returned. Fanacht, morrigan, gnáthlá agus oiche og ceanna; tar ar cúl do sinne.”
As Conor sat, dumbfounded and apprehensive, Destry finally spoke up. She put her hand on his enormous thigh to get his attention. “There’s that phrase again,” she squeezed his leg until he looked at her. She looked rather frightened. “That’s the woman who spoke to me from the tunnels, isn’t it?”
He stared at her, hardly believing what he was hearing. But as he gazed into her bright blue eyes, studying her, Padraigan’s bizarre story suddenly started making some sense. He remembered the first time he had seen Destry; he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He said once that an angel had walked into his midst and that’s exactly what it had felt like. Her lure to him had almost been magnetic, it had been so strong. Even as he gazed at her now, it was the most natural of things being with her, as if they were meant to be together in every way. He couldn’t explain it better than that.
Conor exhaled heavily, rubbing at his forehead as his brain tried to process what he was being told. At some point, Destry was going to want to know what Padraigan was telling him. He didn’t want to answer her now because he didn’t have any answers himself. His gaze moved back to the tiny, wispy woman.
“Those mounds are burial chambers from long ago,” he told her. “They’re not doorways to the nether region.”
Padraigan lifted an eyebrow. “They were not built by men,” she said. “They were built by gods. When the sun is just so, the doorway opens. It opened today when you and your queen stepped through. I called to you and you came.”
Destry squeezed his thigh again but he put a big hand over hers, stilling it. He wanted to make sure he was absolutely clear on things before he started translating because, quite honestly, he was rather overwhelmed by it all. It was crazy, interesting and oddly believable all at the same time. He looked at Padraigan with a mixture of suspicion, disbelief and fear.
“None of that makes any sense,” he told her. “Destry is not my wife. I only just met her. And we have lives; I remember where I was born and I know my parents. How do you explain that?”
Padraigan lifted her slender shoulders. “Rebirth.”
His brow furrowed. “Rebirth? What does that mean?”
“It means that your transition into the nether region saw you reborn,” she murmured. “You returned as an infant and grew into the man you are today. That is why you only remember your life in the nether region. But you are still our king; you are still Conor ard rí Ciannachta, and we need you here.”
He just stared at her, hard. “Conor, High King of Ciannachta,” he translated softly. He had to admit, he liked the ring of it. But that didn’t dispel the fact that it was nonsense; his logical mind just couldn’t give in, not yet. “I’m not a high king. I’m not anything. You must have me mixed up with someone else.”
She smiled faintly. “May I ask a question, my lord?”
“Go ahead.”
“How do you explain your appearance outside of the doras ama? You said yourself that nothing looks as you remember it. Would the nether region change so much in the blink of an eye that you would not recognize it?”
He sat back, regarding her, trying to come up with an answer that would satisfy them both, mostly because he was feeling a great deal of horror in the realization that any answer he could come up with lent credence to her story. But something in his brain, some small and tucked away place, was telling him that what the woman said just might be true. It was more a feeling than anything else and he was resistant to it. But that resistance was fading.
“It’s a great story, I’ll give you that,” he put up a hand as if to block her out. “And I appreciate your hospitality. But Destry and I need to get to a hospital. If you don’t have a phone we can use, do you have any neighbors with phones?”
Padraigan’s gaze was steady. “If I can prove to you that what I say is true, will you believe?”
He lifted his eyebrows and scratched at his head, showing signs of restlessness and exasperation. “Sure,” he said. “Go ahead. Do your worst.”
Padraigan stood up and disappeared into the small room where she had retrieved the cups and pitcher. When she vanished from view, Destry turned to Conor and squeezed his big thigh again.
“Now will you tell me what she said?” she hissed.
He nodded his head, putting his arm around her shoulders to calm her down. “I think she’s nuts.”
“Really? Why?”
He sighed and looked her in the eye, trying to summarize what he was told and not flip her out in the process. “Well,” he scratched at his goatee. “She says that Dowth is apparently not so much a Neolithic burial chamber as it is some kind of time-travel device. She says that I am really some kind of high king and you are really my wife. Evidently I have a jealous brother who had his wicked sorcerer banish us into whatever doorway opens up in Dowth, sending us into the nether region with no memory of our former life or of each other. She further says that she called to you and that you heeded her call. That was the voice you heard calling to you in your dreams.”
Destry stared at him as he finished his tale. He could see the thought processes in her expression; interest to incredulity to disbelief. By the time he was finished, however, her cheeks were growing pink and he could see tears in her eyes.
“I did hear her voice,” she hissed, leaping up from the stool. “I told you I heard her voice. But she must have been lying in wait for me somehow, hiding in those old tunnels.”
“What about the dreams?”
She looked increasingly upset. “She must have freaked me out so bad with her whispers in the tunnel that I just dreamed of them,” she insisted. “Maybe she hypnotized me; I just don’t know. How else can you explain something like that?”
“You heard two complete phrases.”
“Whose side are you on?”
He could see how upset she was becoming and he grasped her hands to keep her from panicking. “Your side,” he insisted softly. “I’m always on your side.”
“Let’s get out of here before something awful happens.”
He nodded patiently. “We’ll leave,” he assured her. “But I need you to calm down, sweetheart. There’s no reason to get so upset.”
“So upset?” she repeated, her voice rising in pitch. “That woman is telling you crazy stories and you just sit here calmly listening to them.”
“You’re the one that said we needed to come with her.”
She shook her head so hard that her long hair flopped in her eyes. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “We need to leave before she murders us. She’s set us up somehow. I want to go back to the hotel now.”
He put up a hand to soothe her before she went wild. “We’ll go,” he murmured, trying to steer her back onto her stool. “Just calm down. Please.”
She opened her mouth to argue with him when Padraigan entered the room again, followed by her three little helpers. Her gaze moved between Destry, standing up and looking at her with some fear, and Conor as he held on to Destry’s hands. Padraigan could guess what had happen by the skittish look on Destry’s face. When she spoke, it was mostly directed at Destry.
“My great and noble queen,” she said softy. “Do you not recognize my face? You and I were as sisters, once.”
Conor looked up to Destry and quietly relayed the question. Destry shook her head fearfully in response and Padraigan continued.
“Your love for your husband was great,” she told the story with a delicate lilt. “So strong it was that it could move mountains. You and the king loved each other from times of old, from times before this, passing through the centuries in different forms but with the same strong love for one another. Somehow, you always found each other no matter what. And it is your love for your husband, and for your family, that gives you your strength. It binds you, protects you and guides you. It is that love that has guided you here today.”
Conor whispered Padraigan’s words to Destry verbatim. Confused, frightened, Destry didn’t have any reply other than to burst into quiet tears. Conor gently pulled her down onto his lap, wrapping his enormous arms around her and hugging her. He didn’t know what else to do. Padraigan took a few timid steps towards the couple, her tender focus on Destry.
“When Olc of the Eye exiled your husband through the doras ama, you came to me with one request,” she whispered. “You wanted me to protect your sons, three fine, strong lads in the image of their father. Of course I agreed and it is since that time that I have lived out here in the wilds, concealing the lads from those who would harm them. Today I will give them back to you and then you will understand the truth of my words.”
Conor’s gaze lingered on Padraigan a moment before he reluctantly relayed the statement to Destry. Her weeping grew stronger and she wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face against his shoulder. It was as if she was trying to hide. He held her tightly, his gaze riveted to Padraigan, wondering with some trepidation what she was going to do next.
The wispy woman met Conor’s gaze strongly before turning to the hearth. There was a clutter of containers and other miscellaneous vials near one corner of the hearth, lined up against the stone of the wall, and she began rummaging about in the clutter. Pulling forth a wooden vessel, she blew the dust out of it and began to pour various ingredients into it.
“When you brought your sons to me for safe keeping, I knew that it would be a difficult task to hide them against those who would seek to harm them,” she said, pouring another measure of something mysterious into the cup and swirling the contents. “I also knew that I could not keep them locked in a hole until your return, so the most logical conclusion I could reach was to hide them in plain sight. And they have been hidden, in full view, since your exile.”
She poured a final ingredient into the cup and watched it smoke. By this time, Destry had calmed her tears and was watching the woman mix the concoction. But her arms were still wrapped around Conor’s neck, holding on to him tightly.
“What’s she saying?” she sniffled.
He turned to look at her, his face right up against hers. He couldn’t help himself from kissing her on the cheek.
“She says that when you brought our sons to her for safe keeping, she had to hide them in plain sight,” he said softly.
Destry turned to look at him, realizing she was literally right up against his face. She loosened her grip on his neck slightly, just enough so there was a few inches of space between them. But she found herself giving in to the closeness, feeling the heat from the man’s body and loving it. He was so powerful, so sweet and compassionate, that she could feel herself succumbing to it.
Truth be told, she really didn’t care any longer. She didn’t care that she’d had a broken engagement two weeks ago or confusion about her love life and her future. There was something about Conor Daderga that broke down her walls and touched her deeply.
She lifted an eyebrow at him. “You know,” she murmured thoughtfully. “If you and I had… well, you know… I think I would have remembered it.”
He smiled. “I know for a fact that I would have.”
“She says we have children together?”
“That’s what she says.”
“I think I would have remembered giving birth, too.”
He laughed softly. “I would remember that also. It wouldn’t be like me to forget my baby’s mama.”
She started laughing. “You sound like you’ve had experience with that kind of thing.”
He snorted. “Thank God, no,” he said. “I’m just saying that I think I would have remembered the woman who gave birth to my children.”
Destry gazed into his sky blue eyes, permitting herself for the first time to feel the pull between them. She didn’t resist. “I don’t think it would be such a bad thing to give birth to your children,” she murmured. “I’ll bet you’d make a great dad.”
He couldn’t help it; he leaned forward and slanted his lips over hers, kissing her gently and passionately. Destry wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and kissed him in return, the first time she voluntarily did so. It was warm, gently, but full of promise. Thrilled, Conor was preparing to deliver a more powerful kiss in response but Padraigan’s voice interrupted his intentions.
“Mattock is your eldest and a very good lad,” she stood up from her make-shift laboratory. “He took the potion first. When Devlin and Slane saw Mattock drink it, they took it as well. The spell transformed the boys into dwarves so they would not be suspected by those intent to harm them.”
She was moving to the three dwarves standing expectantly behind her. She handed the cup to the first little man and he took two big, healthy swallows. Then she passed it to the other two, who drained it between them. Setting the cup down, Padraigan stood back and watched.
Conor and Destry were watching, too. The three little men seemed to stand there for a small eternity, looking at each other, inspecting their hands, touching their faces. Then, the first dwarf who had drank the potion suddenly coughed loudly and fell back onto his bum. He groaned and flipped over onto his belly, kicking his legs and mumbling unintelligible words. Concerned and curious, Destry and Conor strained to catch a glimpse of what was going on when the other two little men went down.
Being a nurse, Destry’s first instinct was to help. She stood up from Conor’s lap, trying to get a better look at the writhing men.
“What did she give them?” she demanded, looking at Conor. “Ask her what she gave them.”
Conor said something to Padraigan, who merely turned to smile at him. Destry, increasingly concerned as the three little men rolled around on the dirt floor and grunted, tried to move towards them but Conor stopped her. He had hold of her hand, pulling her back towards him.
“Wait a minute,” he said softly. “I doubt she’s poisoned them right in front of us. Just wait and see what happens.”
She still wasn’t convinced. “But they’re obviously in distress,” she said. “At least let me take a look at them and make sure their vital signs are strong.”
He could see the feet of the little men as they rolled around, the backside of their bodies, but not much else. He finally shook his head. “If something is going on, I don’t want you to get caught up in it,” he said. “You’ve already got a mild concussion and I don’t want to see something worse happen to you. Just… give this a moment to see what happens, okay? If it looks like they’re getting worse, then you can take a look.”
Torn, concerned, Destry did as he asked although she wasn’t completely comfortable with it. She let him pull her back down onto his lap, his big arms winding around her torso again. But as she watched, something strange began to happen.
First, she thought it was a trick of the light. She began to see an odd aura around the men, something that looked slightly purple. She blinked her eyes but it didn’t go away. Then she rubbed at her eyes but it still didn’t go away. As she watched, the first little man pushed himself to his knees. The purple light around him undulated, seemingly transforming him like a hand would transform clay. The man’s body moved strangely, elongating, working with the tricks of the light to transform him into something taller and more slender. By the time the man stood up, he wasn’t anything as he had been. Whatever magic the light accomplished was evident in the younger, taller and skinnier figure. He was no longer writhing or grunting, now completely calm as the purple aura faded. Then he turned around.
The man was no longer a man; he was a boy, perhaps eight or ten years of age, with auburn hair and bright blue eyes. He was a handsome child with beautiful features, his gaze moving immediately to Destry and Conor. His gaze met with two pairs of startled eyes, inquisitive, then joyful. Suddenly, he was bolting across the floor and throwing himself into Destry’s lap.
Destry shrieked when the boy landed in her lap, his arms around her and Conor, his little face pressed into her belly.
“Máthair, athair!” the child cried. “Tá mé caillte agat!”
Destry had her hands full of little boy. “What did he say?” she asked Conor.
Conor, too, was looking with astonishment at the boy on Destry’s lap. “He called us mother and father,” he said. “He said that he has missed us.”
Destry looked at Conor, her eyes wide with bewilderment. “He thinks we’re his…?”
She didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence; suddenly, two more boys were rushing at them, both with light brown hair, about six and four years of age, respectively. They threw themselves on top of the other boy, now all three young lads squirming in Destry’s lap. They were weeping with joy, especially the little one; he was an adorable little boy with light brown hair and sky blue eyes. When he gazed up at Destry, tears running down his face, she felt the overwhelming need to pick him up and hold him. She had no idea who the kid was but that didn’t matter; he was distressed and she wanted to comfort him. The child wrapped himself up around her, holding her tightly, as she looked at Conor.
There were tears in her eyes. “These poor little boys,” she whispered as tears trickled down her face. “They’re so… sad.”
Conor had his lap full with Destry and the other two boys. He, too, felt the instinct to comfort them. It was true that they were distraught but there was also something else deep in his heart that cried out to these children. The sensation confused and distressed him as a big hand found its way onto the oldest boy, still weeping in his lap. The child’s head came up and he threw his arms around Conor’s neck, holding the man tightly.
“Athair,” he squeezed Conor’s neck. “You have come home. You have come back!”
Conor hesitantly hugged the boy, not knowing what else to do. He looked at Destry over the top of the auburn head, their eyes meeting and silent words of bewilderment and compassion passing between them. It would seem that neither one of them knew what to do about these children. But Destry seemed a little more edgy, more fearful.
“Those… those midgets were really these children,” she breathed.
Conor lifted his eyebrows reluctantly. “I suppose so,” he muttered. “I just don’t know. There has to be a logical explanation for it.”
“Like what?” she wanted to know, whispering desperately. “You saw them turn into these kids just like I did. What’s logical about that?”
She was growing agitated, even with the four year old child wrapped up around her. Conor simply didn’t have an answer for her. “I don’t know,” he wouldn’t look at her. “But there has to be some kind of explanation.”
Destry’s gaze drifted to the biggest lad, the one with his face pressed into Conor’s neck. She studied the child, the shape of his head, and began to feel the faint wafts of déjà vu clutching at her. The feeling got stronger the more she stared at the child; more than that, the feel of the little one in her arms was vague familiar, as if she had known it once before. It was the sweetest thing she could have imagined. Her gaze found Conor once again.
“Did you see his face?” she whispered. “Conor, he looks just like you.”
Conor hadn’t gotten a good look; now he wasn’t sure he wanted to. So much of this situation was now becoming unbearably real to him and he felt like he was losing his grip on what he believed to be his reality. After a moment, he held the boy back, at arm’s length, and studied his handsome little face. He found himself inspecting bright blue eyes that looked just like Destry’s, and a mouth, nose and jaw line that looked just like his. It was the weirdest thing he had ever seen.
“Cad é do ainm, buachaill?” he asked softly.
What’s your name, boy? The lad looked as if he was about to weep with joy. “Mattock,” he responded. “I love you, Dada. I missed you.”
Conor didn’t know what to say; the little boy was so sad, so pathetic, he couldn’t help but hug the child. He just didn’t know what else to do. He looked over at Destry, who had her face buried in the top of the four-year-old’s head. As he watched, the middle boy cuddled up against her and she opened one of her arms for him, holding him tightly. He had to admit, as he watched the scene, that something inside him felt whole and settled. It was the most overwhelmingly comforting feeling he had ever known, as if now he was suddenly and finally complete.
As he watched Destry with the other two boys, pictures began to flash in his mind, like snippets of a movie reel. He saw himself with his hand on a pregnant belly, with a baby in his arms, and then flashes of more children at his feet. He blinked his eyes, shaking his head, thinking he was having hallucinations, but more visions flashed in front of him, this time of Destry. He had visions of kissing her, of making love to her, and he suddenly felt as if his heart was going to explode from his chest from the love he felt for her. He couldn’t breathe. All he could feel was adoration that went beyond words, beyond time. He couldn’t seem to think or feel anything else.
As Conor struggled through intense visions, Destry was quickly succumbing to something even more intense. The feel and smell of the boys in her arms was doing something to her; somehow, she knew these children. She could feel them deep down in her heart and as she hugged the littlest one, she, too, began to have flashbacks of something fluid and dream-like. She saw Conor in a way she’d never seen him before; dressed in leather, with primitive weapons, and she began to feel such love and affection for the man that she audibly gasped. Then she saw him making love to her and she could feel her limbs grow warm and weak, tasting his kisses and feeling the emotion that he stirred within her.
Flashes of a rounded belly came to her mind, startling her, then finally the last few moments of childbirth as pain surged and she pushed out a male child, who was immediately handed over to a weeping Conor. Tears came to her eyes as she saw these things and felt the powerful emotions they created. But another vision came along, more powerful than the rest, and she was lying on a bed struggling to give birth to another child, pain as she had never experienced surging through her body. It was enough to cause her to release the four year old, setting him down with shaky arms as she stood up, hand to her head as if to forcibly wipe away the visions that were now slamming into her with painful force.
She stood up, hand to her belly, hearing Conor’s voice ringing in her head, calling to her, but unable to discern if he was really speaking to her or if it was the odd hallucinations calling out. The vision of childbirth had not gone away; it was more intense now as she envisioned herself pushing out a dead child, hearing someone say that the daughter was not meant to be.
Grief, the depths of which she could have never imagined, swept her and she began crying aloud. She felt pain such as she had never known and her head began to swim. She tried to turn around, to say something to Conor, but she couldn’t seem to manage it.
Blackness closed in over her before she realized it.